Widgets are crashing Windows 11 - and Microsoft’s got other bugs to deal with

The latest update reportedly carries a nasty widget-related bug that crashes the OS

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Windows 11users are experiencing a bunch of issues – many of them ongoing – following the latest update for the OS, according to reports on Reddit.

A new and rather worrying-sounding problem that some folks have experienced was highlighted in the thread onRedditdiscussing the latest cumulative update forWindows 11that arrived earlier this week (KB5026372 forWindows 1122H2).

A Redditor tells us: “This update broke the widget panel again and now it crashes something else; I think I’ll uninstall this update.”

In fact, it can crash Windows 11 completely, as someone else affected by the problem (again on Reddit)points out: “Opening widgets has become a game of Russian Roulette. Sometimes it works and sometimes it crashes the OS.”

Another user chips in with the former thread, noting they have the exact same gremlin in the works. Nasty indeed, although that said, we’ve seen a potential cure being mentioned (we’ll bring that up when we discuss this in a bit more depth below).

Elsewhere on the lengthy Reddit thread for KB5026372, we see complaints that the problem ofSSDsrunning much more slowly than they should hasn’t been resolved (an issue kicking about since March).

There are also reports of VPNs being problematic with the update – again, a continuing glitch with Windows 11 – with speeds dropping when using L2TP/IPsec protocols, and connection issues being reported, too.

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A further problem has been complained about by a number of people who use an Xbox controller and Xbox wireless adaptor with their Windows 11 PC. They’re finding that a crash happens when they turn off the controller. (But otherwise, everything works fine).

Seriously annoying TPM detection issues also remain, with several users complaining about this happening (it seemingly affectsvarious AMD Ryzen processors).

Analysis: Flak fired at Microsoft

A lot of these reported problems are issues that have been spotted before, and are hanging around – with Windows 11 users who are affected starting to get seriously irritated thatMicrosofthasn’t yet deployed a fix for these.

We can imagine if you are experiencing your SSD running much more sluggishly than it should (including booting), that’s going to get pretty old, pretty quickly. And this bug has been around since March.

As one Redditorobserves: “Come on Microsoft… Security bugs and slowness should be a priority over ads about Edge in the search bar!!!“

They’ve hit the nail on the head there, in our opinion.

As for the new issue with widgets, we don’t know how widespread that is. There are just a few scattered reports right now, so we’re assuming it’s only affecting a small number of people. However, with it crashing Windows 11 sometimes, it’s a pretty unpleasant bug to be hit by, no doubt.

The good news with the widget panel flaw is that as we mentioned above, there’s an apparent cure. And that’s to uninstall the cumulative update, and then reinstall it, which according to one report resolves the problem. Obviously, take this advice with a good deal of salt – it may or may not work for you, but could be worth a shot.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

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